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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




PUREST SPRINGS 

AND ONE OFTHE 



MOST DESIRABLE RESORTS 

= IN TH E^ Ji:,^^- - 

S^OUTHERN STATES 



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THE ALTAMONTE 

HOTEL AND SPRINGS 

Are owned and conducted by a syndicate of North- 
ern and Eastern capitalists, who bought this particu- 
larly charming section of the Orange County paradise, 
not merely as a land or hotel Investment, but as a 
specially desirable winter resort for themselves, their 
own families, and friends. 

The incorporate name of the syndicate is 

THE ALTAMONTE COMPANY. 



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(^O much has been written about Florida within the past 
/M/ decade, as well in newspapers and magazines as in such 
cautiously worded works as those by Mrs. Harriet Beecher 
Stowe, Sidney Lanier, and George M. Barbour, that the people 
of the United States have now pretty generally sifted truth from 
error, and convinced themselves that the three million dollars 
paid for Florida by their grandfathers was one of the best real- 
estate investments ever made, since it has provided forty mil- 
lions of people with one of the healthiest sanitariums and 
pleasure-parks in the Western World, and made comfortably 
accessible to them the rich fruits and soothing airs of a semi- 
tropical clime. Three million dollars is but a bagatelle to give 
for several million cubic miles of sunshine. 

The watershed of Florida is its vertebral column, and the 
rivers are its arteries. It is from the river or lowland district 
that visitors and prospectors have carried away some unfavor- 
able reports : it is there that the mosquitoes are most trouble- 
some, and malaria sometimes encountered. But the central 



Copyright, iSSb, by Rand Avery Company, Boston. 



THE ALTAMONTE OF FLORIDA. 



highlands form an altogether different kind of place ; and it is 
only within a comparatively few years, that, by the extension of 
the railway system, they have been opened up to settlement, 
and made known as one of the most beautiful and enjoyable 
regions in the world, and the ideal resort for persons in deli- 
cate health. These statements have been made regarding vari- 
ous sections of the highland regions of Florida, but more em- 
phatically and usually of Orange County, sometimes spoken of 
as the paradise of the Southern States. In Orange County are 
many charming spots settled by Northern people ; and it is the 
object of this booklet to call attention to one of the most beau- 
tiful, the village of Altamonte with its excellent springs, fine 
and well-appointed hotel, pure lakes and streams, pleasant 
people, pretty cottages, and attractive social and other 
advantages. 

ALTAMONTE STATION 

is the name by which the place is now known ; but it ought 
properly to be called simply "Altamonte," or "Altamonte 
Springs." 

Altamonte is on the South Florida Railroad, a hundred and 
fifteen miles south of Jacksonville, forty miles west of the 
Atlantic Ocean, and eighty miles east of the Gulf of Mexico. 
It is also twelve miles from Sanford, a city at the head of large 
steamboat navigation on the St. John's River, being the south- 
ern terminus of a line of daily steamers from Jacksonville, and 
the starting-point of the South Florida Railroad. Altamonte 
lies pretty well towards the centre of 

ORANGE COUNTY, 

about which so much has of late years been written. This 
county lies in the heart of the peninsula, between the twenty- 



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THE ALTAMONTE OF FLORIDA. 



eighth and twenty-ninth degrees of north latitude, and is on 
the watershed or divide of the State. Its high, rolling lands 
are covered with a majestic growth of pines, and dimpled with 
hundreds of sparkling lakes and lakelets of purest water. The 
bottoms of these lakes are covered with smooth, hard sand, and 
the water contains fine game-fish. The soil of the country 
produces all the usual semi-tropical fruits, — oranges, lemons, 
bananas, figs, sugar-cane, the guava, limes, citrons, pineapples, 
etc. Orange County borders on the expansions of St. John's 
River, known as Lakes Harney, Munroe, and George ; and of 
its other five largest lakes, one, Apopka, has an area of fifty- 
six square miles. It is in Orange County that many of the most 
noted resorts of Florida are located. Among the most enjoy 
able, although least heralded, is 

ALTAMONTE, 

the subject of this sketch, a town which, as its name (high 
mount) suggests, is situated on some of the very highest land in 
the State. Says the Rev. Dr. A. J. Patterson of Boston, in a 
recent letter published in the '* Boston Home Journal," " Alta- 
monte is one of the most charming places in the State," and is 
destined to "become one of the most popular winter resorts in 
Florida." The town is situated upon a high hill overlooking 
lovely lakes, and is in the very centre of the fragrant pine-woods. 
The street-car line extends along a broad half-mile boulevard, 
lined on each side with trees. Scattered here and there in the 
midst of blossoming orange-groves are the cosy cottages of 
Eastern capitalists. As a sanitarium, Altamonte (so say all 
authorities) is destined to rank very high, and for the follow- 
ing reasons : in the first place, the air is extremely dry and 
pure, as is shown by the scarcity of moss on the trees, — in fact. 



THE ALTAMONTE OF FLORIDA. 



the air is just about like tliat of Minnesota in point of humid- 
ity ; secondly, the water is perfectly pure and sweet ; again, the 
average of the mercury in winter is only sixty, and in sum- 
mer seventy-eight, degrees Fahr. Then, the air is so constantly 
agitated by cool Gulf-stream breezes blowing across the State 
from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico, that malaria or fever 
is absolutely unknown. The same healing and invigorating 
breezes, loaded with the terebinthine and balsamic odors of the 
pines, serve also almost wholly to do away with the mosquito 
nuisance. If Mrs. Stowe in her home on the St. John's could 
pronounce, as she does, Florida to be " a child's Eden " (see 
her " Palmetto Leaves," p. 129), much more could this be said 
of the lovely highland region. The summer days at Altamonte 
are cooled by frequent showers (so different from the choking 
dust of California summers), and the region is rarely visited by 
continental storms. Altamonte is one of the places that 
caused Surgeon-Gen. Carr, in the "London Times," to assert, 
that, " after a thorough study of climate in various parts of the 
world, I stake my reputation upon the statement, that back 
from the rivers of Florida, upon the high pine-lands, is found 
as healthy a climate as on any part of the globe." 

In Mr. George M. Barbour's interesting work on Florida 
(D. Appleton & Co., 1882), a book indorsed by a governor and 
an ex-governor of Florida, and by the Assistant Commissioner 
of Immigration, it is stated that the death-rate of invalids and 
tourists in Colorado is ten times as great as in Orange County. 
Out of a population of seven thousand, the census of iSSo re- 
cords only thirty-one deaths. " From September to April " 
(we' quote from Mr. Barbour's work) "the climate is much like 
the finest Indian-summer day of the North, while from April 
to September the mercury rarely registers more than ninety- 
six degrees." " Mosquitoes are not as numerous or so trouble- 



THE ALTAMONTE OF FLORIDA. 



some as they are in Boston." " Orange County is to-day 
attracting more attention, and increasing faster in population, 
than any other county in the State." 

The prime feature of Altamonte as a resort, is its quietude. 
It is not a place widely advertised for the purpose of attract- 
ing the transient tourist, although, indeed, its picturesque 
scenes are such as abundantly to interest the seeker after the 
beautiful. But it is chiefly the resort of a large number of 
well-to-do Eastern and Northern men of business, who come 
for the perfect repose and quiet they get here. From the 
time of the original purchase to the present, the proprietors 
have had one main object in view, — that of securing for them- 
selves, their families, and their congenial acquaintances, during 
a certain portion of the year, a resort where they could be 
certain of good company, the best of hotel accommodations, 
and those other advantages which people of culture and wealth 
desire while enjoying seclusion from the worry and cares of 
the business world. In this respect, there can be found no 
finer place than Altamonte; and among the hotel-homes of the 
Orange State, there certainly is none more delightfully sit- 
uated or more comfortable in its appointments than 

THE ALTAMONTE HOTEL, 

which begins its fifth season in the winter of 1886. The 
hotel is situated on a high plateau, some ninety feet above 
the St. John's River, in an extensive grove of pines near the 
banks of two beautiful clear-water lakes, affording abundant 
opportunities for gunning, fishing, and boating, and command- 
ing an outlook over miles of picturesque scenery. On the 
lake in front of the hotel has been placed a good steam- 
launch. In every direction are enjoyable walks and drives over 



THE ALTAMONTE OF FLORIDA. 



some of the finest roads in the State, and through the ever- 
green woods and fragrant orange-groves. In the forests, flowers 
bloom the year around ; and night and day in the great pine- 
tops the soft airs from the sea swing to and fro, and whisper 
their soft and soothing crescendo to the leaves, and to the 
charmed and loitering guests. Around the Altamonte Hotel 
are grouped a half-dozen or more fine cottages, occupied 
chiefly by their owners. The hotel-rooms are furnished with 
gas and electric bells, and many of them with open fire- 
places. The house accommodates one hundred guests; and 
its manager, Mr. Frank A. C of ran, manager of the Twin 
Mountain House in the White Mountains, will make every 
possible provision for the comfort and enjoyment of the 
patrons. The cuisine is equal in every respect to that of 
the finest hotels in the country. Upon the table will be found 
the choicest cuts of beef and mutton that the New York 
and Boston markets afford, the delicious fish and oysters of 
Tampa Bay, fresh vegetables grown in the large garden 
attached to the hotel, eggs and poultry from neighboring 
farms, fresh milk and cream, oranges, lemons, strawber- 
ries, bananas, pineapples, and other fruits from surrounding 
orchards, and last, but not least, the purest spring-water that 
anywhere flows from the ground. Horse-cars run from the 
hotel to the railway station, half a mile distant. Connected 
with the hotel are a billiard and pool room, bowling-alley, 
barber-shop, livery stable, and steam-laundry. From Sanford 
to Altamonte, there are three trains a day. 

In short, it is believed that . nothing has been neglected 
which might give comfort and restful enjoyment, an important 
consideration for guests. 



THE ALTAMONTE OF FLORIDA. 



THE ALTAMONTE SPRING. 

Rev. Dr. A. J. Patterson of Boston speaks of the water 
of this spring as follows : " So sensitive am I to impure 
water, that I shipped a barrel of the Poland Spring water 
before me on leaving Boston, and carried a supply in the 
train with me. But on reaching here, I found the water of 
this spring so entirely satisfactory, that it became quite a 
matter of indifference whether the Poland barrel reached me 
at all." 

The analysis of the Altamonte spring-water, as made by 
Professor S. P. Sharpies, State Assayer of Massachusetts, is 

as follows : — 

In loo.ooo parts. 

Inorganic matter . .• 1.5° 

Organic matter i-oo 

Total residue at 212° F 2.50 

Ammonia free. 
Ammonia albuminoid. 
Nitrates. 

Chlorine in chlorides Traces. 

Sulphate of lime Traces. 

Quality Excellent. 

"This water is exceedingly pure, and suitable for any pur- 
pose to which it may be applied," says a Northern writer of 
high standing : " the springs of Altamonte are in themselves 
sufficient, with proper management, to make this a first-class 
sanitarium. I predict for the place an immense success as 
soon as its merits in this regard are known." 

Professor James F. Babcock, formerly State Assayer of 
Massachusetts, says that his analysis of the Altamonte Spring 
water shows the spring to be " one of great purity," and that 
*' this water, being free from any constituent of the slightest ob- 



14 THE ALTAMONTE OF FLORIDA. 

jectionable character, either mineral or organic, may be used 
for drinking, cooking, etc., with entire safety." 

There are other springs not far from the hotel, and among 
them are the beautiful 

SHEPHERD SULPHUR SPRINGS, 

owned by the Altamonte Company, and situated three and a 
half miles from the Altamonte Hotel. The experience of Dr. 
A. M. Gushing, President of the Massachusetts State Homoeo- 
pathic Association, and other eminent physicians, proves that 
these sulphur springs, in connection with the invigorating 
climate of the high table-land, are very efficacious in curing 
dyspepsia, rheumatic, catarrhal, pulmonary, and bronchial dis- 
eases. The sulphur-baths of these springs are destined to 
have a wide celebrity. 

The railroad connecting Altamonte with the outer world is 
the 

SOUTH FLORIDA RAILROAD, 

a road extending from Sanford on the St. John's southward 
through Orange, Polk, and Hillsborough counties to Tampa 
on the Gulf, and connecting at Sanford with daily steamers to 
and from Jacksonville. This railroad is the direct United- 
States mail to Cuba. 

To sum up, one may say of Altamonte, — town, hotel, and 
springs all considered, the delicious water, the dry, pure air, 
and healthy breezes, — that its future is as firmly assured as 
any watering-place or health-resort in the world. 

ROUTES TO ALTAMONTE. 

From Boston, all rail, through New York, Philadelphia, 
Washington, Richmond, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, 
and Sanford, to Altamonte in 47 hours. 




THE SHEPHERD SULPHUR SPRING. 
Owned by the Altamonte Company. Three and a Half Miles from the Altamonte. 



i6 



THE ALTAMONTE OF FLORIDA. 



From Boston, by Boston and Savannah Steamship Line, to 
Savannah. 

From New York, all rail as above, or by steamer, to Savannah 
or Fernandina. 

From Chicago, via Louisville, Nashville, and Cincinnati 
Southern. 

From Jacksonville, by J. T. and K. W. Railroad, or by 
steamers up the St. John's River. 

From Sanford, via South Florida Railroad, over the mail- 
route to Tampa and Havana. 




The Altamonte Hotel, 

UNSURPASSED IN ITS ACCOMMODATIONS, 

WILL OPEN JAN. I, 1887. 

TERMS, $4 A DAY; $17.50 TO $25 A WEEK. 
SPECIAL RATES FOR WHOLE SEASON. 
Address all communications, 

FRANK A. COFRAN. Proprietor. 

ALTAMONTE STATION, 

FLORIDA. 

Before Dec. 10, address FRANK A. COFRAN, Manager, 

Twin Mountain House, Wliite Mountains, N.H. 



The Altamonte Company. 

OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS: 

GEORGE W. MORSE, of Boston. PRESIDENT. 

GEORGE FROST, of Boston, VICE-PRESIDENT. 

CHARLES WHITTIER, of Boston. 

B. C. NO YES, of Lawrence. 

JOHN A. G RE ELY, of Newburyport. 

HENRY L. C///45E/ of Lynn, SECRETARY and TREASURER. 



MAIN OFFICE: 287 DEVONSHIRE STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 



The Altamonte 

OF FLORIDA. 

f\ MOST DESIRABLE WINTER RESOI 



SITUATED IN A PINE FOREST. 



Its famous "ALTAMONTE SPRINGS" furnish 
inexhaustible supply of water as pure and as 
wholesonne as can be found anywhere 
on the globe. 



Its "SHEPHERD SULPHUR SPRINGS" poss 
medicinal qualities of unquestioned merit for 
Internal and external uses. 



Its immediate lakes are of unsurpassed beauty. 



Its surrounding country Is picturesque and health 
and its social advantages are rarely to be 
found in winter resort'-. 



Rand Avery Company, Boston, Ptin 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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